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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Death Of The Public Disclosure Tort: A Historical Perspective, Samantha Barbas Jan 2010

The Death Of The Public Disclosure Tort: A Historical Perspective, Samantha Barbas

Journal Articles

In 1890, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, in their famous Harvard Law Review article The Right to Privacy, called for a new legal right that would allow the victims of truthful but embarrassing press publicity to recover damages for emotional harm. Currently, in most states, it constitutes a tort if the disclosure of “matter concerning the private life of another” would be highly offensive to a reasonable person and the matter is not “of legitimate concern to the public,” or newsworthy. However, because courts generally consider virtually everything that appears in the news media to be newsworthy, the public disclosure …


Minimalism And Deliberative Democracy: A Closer Look At The Virtues Of "Shallowness", Matthew J. Steilen Jan 2010

Minimalism And Deliberative Democracy: A Closer Look At The Virtues Of "Shallowness", Matthew J. Steilen

Journal Articles

Cass Sunstein has long argued that judicial minimalism promotes democracy. According to Sunstein’s view, a court can encourage the political branches of government to address an issue by using doctrines such as vagueness, nondelegation, and desuetude. Although much has been written about minimalism, very little has been said about the democracy-promotion thesis in particular. Yet it is one of the central claims of contemporary minimalism. This article attempts to remedy the deficiency. It argues that minimalism does not promote democracy because minimalist decisions lack the depth necessary to trigger democratic deliberation. The argument occurs in three steps. First, the article …